Wyo-Booming, 1979
for Ed Dorn
Rock formations, Great Divide Basin, Wyoming: photo by MONGO, 2005
Robert Smithson Would Have Loved It
Coming around a corner
to one's first vista
of a big carbon extraction scene
like the Belle Ayr Mine
in Campbell County, Wyoming
is like stumbling
into the Nile Valley
during the building of the Pyramids
to one's first vista
of a big carbon extraction scene
like the Belle Ayr Mine
in Campbell County, Wyoming
is like stumbling
into the Nile Valley
during the building of the Pyramids
Coal mine, Wyoming: photo by Bureau of Land Management, 2004
The Biggest Little Mine in the USA, 1978
Despite losing one-third of its production
during an August conflagration the Belle Ayr operation
still sucked out 15 million tons.
Despite losing one-third of its production
during an August conflagration the Belle Ayr operation
still sucked out 15 million tons.
Pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana), male: photo by Michael Lemmon, 2007
Gillette
Executive class townhouses are the first thing to grow out of
the empty cliffs around Gillette since the inland sea left.
The buffalo and antelope still play amid these grasslands,
but they look a little diminished next to the Minoan scale of the open pit mines.
the empty cliffs around Gillette since the inland sea left.
The buffalo and antelope still play amid these grasslands,
but they look a little diminished next to the Minoan scale of the open pit mines.
BNSF train headed north, Platte County, Wyoming along Interstate 25: photo by Xnatedawgx, 2008
Population Control in Gillette
The coal trains go through all night long
with a racket like all of hell being unleashed as noise.
At first, as you lie in bed in your motel room or mobile home,
it merely disrupts your sleep, your nervous system. Later you kill your dog and wife.
The coal trains go through all night long
with a racket like all of hell being unleashed as noise.
At first, as you lie in bed in your motel room or mobile home,
it merely disrupts your sleep, your nervous system. Later you kill your dog and wife.
Killpecker Sand Dunes, Red Desert region, south central Wyoming: photo by Bureau of Land Management, 2007
Uranium District in Wyoming
Driving through the yellow scorched vastness of the Gas Hills
you roll your windows up tight and try not to breathe
any harder than that cow skull lying along the road is breathing.
The road curves involuntarily into the Rattlesnake Range.
Driving through the yellow scorched vastness of the Gas Hills
you roll your windows up tight and try not to breathe
any harder than that cow skull lying along the road is breathing.
The road curves involuntarily into the Rattlesnake Range.
Aspen Mountain, Wyoming, from Aspen Mountain Road, south of Rock Springs: photo Millonica, 2008
Jeffrey City
In Jeffrey City the snow piled up higher last winter
than anything in town except the CD sirens.
But when the sirens sounded, it was good to know every
web-hat in town could drive his house out from under it.
In Jeffrey City the snow piled up higher last winter
than anything in town except the CD sirens.
But when the sirens sounded, it was good to know every
web-hat in town could drive his house out from under it.
Interstate 25 southbound near exit 14B, Converse County, Wyoming: photo by Xnatedawgx, 2008
Wildcatters
Life along the Overthrust Belt is Lonely. Four by fours with
rifle racks, six packs, Willie and Waylon, Miller's and a shot
can't defeat the ultimate meaning of
having to drive 200 miles in a different direction every morning to get to work.
Life along the Overthrust Belt is Lonely. Four by fours with
rifle racks, six packs, Willie and Waylon, Miller's and a shot
can't defeat the ultimate meaning of
having to drive 200 miles in a different direction every morning to get to work.
Natural gas drill rig on the Pinedale Anticline, just west of Wind River Range, Wyoming: photo by Bureau of Land Management, 2007
Shoshoni
The '77 shootout at the Red and White Cabins
took more than the 2.8 lives the U-dust
of 25 years ago snuffs every year. Besides these mines
are safe now: says a nervous fire inspector
who's waiting get this month's rad badge
back from OSHA, so he can work next month.
took more than the 2.8 lives the U-dust
of 25 years ago snuffs every year. Besides these mines
are safe now: says a nervous fire inspector
who's waiting get this month's rad badge
back from OSHA, so he can work next month.
Oil refinery, Evansville, near Casper, Wyoming: photo by Tara Crooker, 2006
Wyoming
Perhaps it's because it's such a threatening space
what with its great expanse of unaffectionate sky
that workers in this boom region travel from
job to job with their housing intact
and never further than ten feet behind them.
that workers in this boom region travel from
job to job with their housing intact
and never further than ten feet behind them.
Dave Johnston Power Plant east of Glenrock, Wyoming: photo by Xnatedawgx
S.E. Wyoming
The great trans-synaptic stack flashers
of the coal-fired electrical generating plants
that tower over the Badlands across the Platte River
may provide useful power to all the Dakotas
but to the traveler they are purely retinal messengers.
Route sign along southbound Interstate 25 near McKinley, Wyoming: photo by Xnatedawgx, 2008
"The clouds steely..."
The clouds steely off over the mesa to the East
suggest twisters in the Badlands have taken away
what was owed them by the pilgrims there
and now are moving off to test the northern settlers,
or were those twisters we saw merely the swirl above the tipples?
They won't be there to pay if they can help it.
There's no lack of character in fleeing in the teeth
of the prop wash, particularly since the new
type of technological thresher advances only in reverse.
suggest twisters in the Badlands have taken away
what was owed them by the pilgrims there
and now are moving off to test the northern settlers,
or were those twisters we saw merely the swirl above the tipples?
They won't be there to pay if they can help it.
There's no lack of character in fleeing in the teeth
of the prop wash, particularly since the new
type of technological thresher advances only in reverse.
Wyoming snow at sunset: photo by Leila Monaghan, 2008
Worland
Coming down out of Ten Sleep Canyon into Worland
where they still haven't cleared the dust away
from last winter's thirty foot tall drifts
which just melted down and left puddles
of everything that blew through Worland since last Fall
where they still haven't cleared the dust away
from last winter's thirty foot tall drifts
which just melted down and left puddles
of everything that blew through Worland since last Fall
Interstate 25 southbound at exit 151, Ayres Natural Bridge, Wyoming: photo by Xnatedawgx, 2008
Breakfast in Moorcroft
Where Ed stiffed on a rail crew thirty years ago, has a new
cast of drifters now, not railroad but coal
still equally transient, the only thing (pancake shop included) really local
going on are the generally surrounding and impoverished Short Grasses
Where Ed stiffed on a rail crew thirty years ago, has a new
cast of drifters now, not railroad but coal
still equally transient, the only thing (pancake shop included) really local
going on are the generally surrounding and impoverished Short Grasses
Blue Grama (Bouteloua gracilis), High Plains prairie shortgrass, single-sided inflorescence: photo by Curtis Clark, 2004
Grasses
The big bluestem has roots six feet deep
Indian grass grows with the bluestem;
switchgrass also ripples there in the wind.
Going west you get less rain:
the little bluestem grows waist high, and so does
the side oats grama, and the bearded needlegrass.
Further west, the short grass of the Plains grows:
the blue grama, knee high; and the buffalo
grass, which grows up to the ankles.
Sideoats Grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), perennial prairie shortgrass: photo by NRCS Plant Materials Center, 2005
The big bluestem has roots six feet deep
Indian grass grows with the bluestem;
switchgrass also ripples there in the wind.
Going west you get less rain:
the little bluestem grows waist high, and so does
the side oats grama, and the bearded needlegrass.
Further west, the short grass of the Plains grows:
the blue grama, knee high; and the buffalo
grass, which grows up to the ankles.
Sideoats Grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), perennial prairie shortgrass: photo by NRCS Plant Materials Center, 2005
"Grasses are a complex..."
Grasses make up a complex life which does not recover
so easily from mining and drilling as the apologists of
"reclamation" would have us believe, it now turns out
Wanting to "improve" the land is always a hit or miss
proposition depending on your definition of how said land should be used
so easily from mining and drilling as the apologists of
"reclamation" would have us believe, it now turns out
Wanting to "improve" the land is always a hit or miss
proposition depending on your definition of how said land should be used
Looking west at Bear Mountain mesa during sunrise from Hawk Springs Recreation Area, Goshen County, Wyoming: photo by Xnatedawgx, 2007
Checking Out
Across this whole part of the continental table
Time falls away and all that's left is the dusty light of
motels in the West thirty years ago, laughter of
women somewhere off in the distance, crickets
in the violet dusk and a lonely horizontality
against which the beast shadows of the rigs are painted.
motels in the West thirty years ago, laughter of
women somewhere off in the distance, crickets
in the violet dusk and a lonely horizontality
against which the beast shadows of the rigs are painted.
Interstate 90 eastbound at Montana-Wyoming state border: photo by Xnatedawgx, 2008
What the Pioneers Always Wanted To Do Was Arrive
Which meant getting across the mountains alive
but then what? You lost track of the lessons
of the journey when the beginning fell out of sight
beyond the black unreeling truck lane of eternity
Out the window it helps to sing, Goodbye
to the pronghorn, and the buffalo
drops his shaggy head into the unreclaimed sage
unremarking our mechanized passage
Which meant getting across the mountains alive
but then what? You lost track of the lessons
of the journey when the beginning fell out of sight
beyond the black unreeling truck lane of eternity
Out the window it helps to sing, Goodbye
to the pronghorn, and the buffalo
drops his shaggy head into the unreclaimed sage
unremarking our mechanized passage
Bison roam with Teton Range in background, Wyoming: photo by refractor, 2004
Wyo-Booming, 1979 (II)
Billboard along southbound Interstate 25 near Douglas, Wyoming: photo by Xnatedawgx, 2008
At
times along the road from the mines into Gillette, Wyoming, you can
spot grazing buffalo, their heavy blunt heads dipped to the purple
sage, ignoring the 80 m.p.h. barreling of rush-hour pickups. It's that
Wyoming time warp again: the past and the future, both incongruous in
the hopelessly undiscriminating and democratic light of the present.
****
Gillette at night: the motel lady replies to a request for directions downtown with a scowl.
"You don't want to go there."
"Why, what's down there?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all you'd be interested in."
In the Center Bar, about a dozen taciturn workers and cowboys and two longhaired Indians are lined up on stools, impassively watching reruns of Earnie Shavers pounding on Ken Norton. On the jukebox in the background, Waylon Jennings explains how being crazy kept him from going insane. The lady bartender does double duty, pouring drinks and operating a package service out of a side window with a sliding panel of wood. Most of the faces framed when she opens the window seem young, bare and happy-drunk. It's Friday night. Their radios are loud.
The bar lady turns back to the bar to talk about working through the epic, minus 85 degree wind-chill nights and days of the winter just past.
"Oh, and of course we had a lot of snow," she says. "The coal mines and the oil rigs they just go on in any weather. They go right on working with whoever shows up, shorthanded. But back in January when it got at its worst, nobody came to work at all. So the oil people used helicopters. First time I ever saw that happen. They flew the boys out from Gillette in helicopters and then flew them back, just like over in Vietnam."
The jukebox stops playing and the talking lady's voice rings through the bar. A cowboy elaborately disengages himself from his bar stool and goes over to feed the jukebox money.
"Not much of a crowd," the bar lady says. "They're pullin' a lot of the rigs out of here."
"Oil people?"
"That's right. A lot of 'em are already gone. They're down in Wamsutter and Rawlins and over in South Dakota now."
"Do they come back?"
"Oh, sure, they'll be back up here in the fall." She laughs dryly.
"Oil people come and go?"
"Well, right now the boom's starting to fade in oil, so they're lookin' someplace else. But the coal, that's gettin' better and better. They've got three new mines goin' up right now, big ones. You aim to find work?"
"Could be."
"You won't have no trouble finding it around here."
****
A two-mile-long unit train runs on a new spur down an embankment. On the other side of the road, a dozen mule deer browse in the gentle wooded breaks. Down the road there's an ancient log-fenced homestead. The topsoil of the open pit mine has been dumped on both sides of the road into giant eroded mounds. A new freeway is being built next to the old road, along which the litter of cans and bottles is as dense as you'd find at Coney Island.
****
Saturday night in Gillette. The main drag's full of fair-haired kids, fat women and guys in webbed baseball hats. The back end of a magazine and souvenir store turns out to be a weapons depot. Big glass cases full of Smith and Wesson .357 Magnums, Ruger .44s, Colt .45s -- some of the biggest handguns in the movies.
Saturday afternoon at the Center Bar is watching two Indian girls beat the dickens out of two wildcatters in a game of nine-ball.
East Hart Street as seen from Interstate 25 looking west, Buffalo, Wyoming: photo by Xnatedawgx, 2008
We made the exploratory expedition to the suddenly booming extraction zones of Wyoming around this time of year (late March/early April) in 1979, at the height of the so-called "Energy Crisis". All was still wintry-stark and frigid in the most barren, unwelcoming empty landscapes imaginable, forlorn longshot grasshopper drill rigs bobbing hopefully out back of every desolate shack, the roadside snow fences leaning away from sharp sweeping continental winds. The roving oklahoma wildcatters who were filling the highways with their propane tanks on trailers would be largely gone in a year or two, when the price of gas went back down, off on the road again to build the trans alaska pipeline -- always some abundant resource to monetize and exhaust, what made murica great. In the Gas Hills and the Rattlesnake Range in late March 1979 there was a feeling of being on the Moon, after the forced evacuation of an archaic original race of inhabitants during a period of Gargantoid Exploitation. We interviewed cowboys and wildcatters who couldn't figure out what we were up to but were pleasantly free of predisposition one way or another, crested the Wind River Range in a rented VW Rabbit amid a dizzying no visibility blizzard, and came down the other side to catch the NCAA final (Bird v Magic) on a tiny tv in a bar in Buffalo, WY. See above pic of main drag. All the above text is verité, from my log of our survey. The great emptiness of everything... Joseph Vavak's photos bring a lot of that big Nothing feeling back.
vale of sorrows
Israeli
troops shot dead seven Palestinian protesters and wounded at least 200
along the Israel-Gaza border on Friday, Gaza medical officials said,
raising the death toll to 27 in the week-long disturbances.: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 6 April 2018
GAZA STRIP - Clashes erupt as protests begin along Gaza border Photo @MahmudHams #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 6 April 2018
GAZA STRIP - Clashes erupt as protests begin along Gaza border Photo @MahmudHams #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 6 April 2018
GAZA STRIP - Clashes erupt as protests begin along Gaza border Photo @saidkhatib #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 6 April 2018
#Afghanistan An Afghan worker is seen reflected on mirror at a traditional sweets factory in Mazar-i-Sharif. Photo @farshadusyan #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 6 April 2018
#Iraq An Iraqi Kurdish woman attends a cultural festival near Maqlub Mountains. #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 6 April 2018
SYRIA - Buses carrying Jaish al-Islam fighters and their families, from the former rebel bastion's main town of Douma, arrive in Azaz on their way to a refugee camp. Photo @NazeerAlk: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 6 April 2018
#Bangladesh A Rohingya refugee barber gives a shave to a customer at Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh's Ukhia district Photo @uz_munir #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 5 April 2018
#Bangladesh Rohingya refugee men play a board game named "sologuti" at Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh's Ukhia district Photo @uz_munir #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 5 April 2018
#Bangladesh Rohingya refugee men play a board game named "sologuti" at Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh's Ukhia district Photo @uz_munir #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 5 April 2018
An immigrant who jumped into a canal to escape capture after illegally crossing the Mexico-U.S. border turns himself in to border patrol, in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas Photo @Lelliottphoto: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 6 April 2018
#goodnight
A couple enjoy Perseid meteor along the Milky Way during the "Perseids" meteor shower.
Photo @CesarMansoFoto: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 6 April 2018
Lord Emperor Tiny Hands Makes a Point and a Paper Airplane (hopping the wall in 2 mins)
President Donald Trump throws his prepared remarks into the air while speaking about tax reform in West Virginia. Photo Kevin Lamarque: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 6 April 2018
Shades of the paper towels, aversion to boredom as a bragging point. With apologies to the Stars and Stripes. Photo Kevin Lamarque @reuterspictures @washington post #westvirginia: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 6 April 2018
#Mexico Hopping the wall into Trump's US, in under 2 minutes @AFPphoto by @HerikaMartinez7: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 6 April 2018
Nostalgically named, the Caravan was a yearly, largely symbolic event before Fox and Friends, then DJT, reframed this year’s as an invasion. he attention makes quiet images more poignant. @bloombergimages Central American asylum-seekers on road in Oaxaca.: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 4 April 2018
King Con (Dude is staring into my soul man... Chag off, dumb f*cks... uh what am I saying?!)
As he runs riot in New York, Updated version of my Conor McGregor youse Ill do Fukin nuthin cartoon UFC223 #Notorious #ConorMcGregor #ufc #DanaWhite: image via Niall O'Loughlin @nialloloughlin, 5 April 2018
Baking hamentashen. Chag sameach!: image via Mark Zuckerberg, 9:19 PM 2 March 2018
This is new. FB no doubt has got the developers now crying at them on what they exactly do get for the 30% platform cut. Are they going to get a discount now that they have to advertise on FB??? The joke is on the App people who made the platform #Zuck: image via The InfoAddict @theinfoaddict, 4 April 2018
Replying to @V_of_Europe Picture is from a recent assange tweet I think #Zuck doesn't give a f*ck about his users: image via dissin @dissin, 25 March 2018
Reports claim that Conor McGregor has been arrested after his antics at #UFC223 media day. A source claims that Dana White turned up at the scene and said "Conor is in jail, he's done" #ConorMcGregor #KhabibTimes #Khabibnurmagomedov #MaxHolloway #UFC #MMA #Fighting #breaking news: image via Dylan Chambers @DylanChambers, 5 April 2018
Reports claim that Conor McGregor has been arrested after his antics at #UFC223 media day. A source claims that Dana White turned up at the scene and said "Conor is in jail, he's done" #ConorMcGregor #KhabibTimes #Khabibnurmagomedov #MaxHolloway #UFC #MMA #Fighting #breaking news: image via Dylan Chambers @DylanChambers, 5 April 2018
Dude is staring into my soul man... #ConorMcGregor #UFC223: image via lil_wuulf @lil_wuulf, 6 April 2018
Could have done with this lad to lift a few gates while setting up the yard for the annual herd test... @LaoisToday @AgrilandIreland @farmersjournal @farm_ireland #ConorMcGregor: image via Bobby Miller @bobbymiller73, 6 April 2018
Conor McGregor in "jail" taking pictures and signing autographs #ConorMcGregor #UFC223: image via Dustin Lara @dml8184, 6 April 2018
Those were the days, Tom. Bring back the grasses with the memories. You nailed it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tom.
ReplyDeleteAh, so few of us left anymore, to remember the grasses.
... But of course, you do have the grasses, where you are..
ReplyDeletehere we have the gases, the refinery corridor the no-emissions-standards bumper to bumper automotive bonanza
right here in our collapsing mudfill haunted front yard
yes we have no bananas
choking emissions though enough already
Dunno if those humanoids inside those monster SUVs might not be so strapped up and into protective devices they don't even ever have to breathe the air they are fouling as they speed from SFO to Walnut creek & vice versa
getting spending centres
(2 hick towns around here)
Believe it if you will, in the Nixon years the best hope of the grasses was the EPA, under Wm Ruckelshaus
(Excuse spelling, heavy blow day in Cave of the Winds, atmospheric riverwise...)
You'll remember the mayfly lifespan of Rocky Mtn Magazine, Tom?
ReplyDeleteRolling Stone does (gentrifies, gilds lily of) the High Plains
Translated Aspen Santa Fe and highend hipster Montana (this in period of Bruce Webber McGuane Brautigan et al)
Political correctness-almost and an attempt to elevate the lifestyle self consciousness of The New Money West
When I came back with the mother of this piece there was a skirmish over the saying of the phenomenon of boomer women spending all their time in the trailer surrounded by snow drifts while hubby out on drill rig
Editor lady flat refused the phrase "Michelin woman"
Kinda liked the ring of it myself, mythic like
Venus of Willendorf
designation of positives what's not to like
Of course that was another L for investigatory journalism
they'd already sent me 2 / 3 places maybe more I'm repressing
can't quite recall exactly, but 2 i do remember
1 Federal Train Test Center, Pueblo (well, 50 mi east, into nowhere.. got lost.. finally turned L for luck at Boone, where there is one landmark, the Nike missile in centre of NORAD era town that wasn't there anymore..)
2 They sent me also to Rocky Flats on an investigative piece on security around the plutonium handling buildings... rode bike out there in winter, gears ice crusted, parked by storm fence, climbed over, testing testing, easy peasy
then called up RF pub info director and shared
speaking of those were the days
Ah, the beast shadows of the gases. I well remember the fancy pants RMM. It was something. Just read much of Hjortsberg’s Brautigan bio. You’re all over that. And while we’re bringing back the grasses, the bearded ones for this country, let’s bring back Ruckelshaus.
Delete